Posted on 06/19/2003 7:36:03 PM PDT by mhking
Edited on 06/23/2003 2:48:15 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
PORTAGE COUNTY -- A mother traveling from Detroit to Pittsburgh got into trouble in Portage County while trying to drive and breastfeed her baby at the same time.
Twenty-nine-year-old Catherine Donkers had fed the baby before she left Detroit but said her seven-month-old daughter was hungry again.
"I knew I was doing nothing wrong when I was breastfeeding her," Donkers said.
Donkers doesn't consider her actions excessively dangerous.
"I think there are lots of things we do when we put ourselves at risk, just by the very fact that I'm in a car and there's lots of car accidents every single day," she said. "I think it would be reasonable to say even that's a danger."
A truck driver apparently saw it as a danger and called the highway patrol. But Donkers wouldn't pull over for police until she got to a tollbooth.
"I've directed her to, that when she doesn't feel safe, she goes to a public place," said her husband, Brad Barnhill.
At the tollbooth, Donkers didn't give the trooper a driver's license. She instead pulled out an affidavit as identification and got cited for not having a license.
The couple also claims she did nothing wrong, saying Michigan law has an exemption to its child restraint law for nursing mothers.
They claim that since the turnpike is an interstate, drivers can follow the laws of their home state. But the highway patrol says that as long as the stop occurred in Ohio, they have to abide by Ohio laws.
The couple has done extensive research on the law and believes in a strict adherence to them. Donkers is facing child endangering and child seat violations among other charges. Her and her husband say they plan to fight all charges and will file a counter suit.
That's not true at all. Causing potential harm by an act of comission or omission, has long been punishable by criminal and civil sanction.
If you believe that, "no blood, no foul" rule, then I suggest finding a geographically isolated society, upon which to test that. That society won't last very long...
Oh, and don't bother to trot out the Franklin quote. "Necessary liberty" does not include recklessly endangering others (including the baby).
In your estimation.
The officer on the scene is the only one truly able to make that determination. If she were able to pull over at the rest stop to take care of everything else, then she could just as easily feed the child the milk at the rest stop. Your point is moot.
Do we care what the law says or do we ignore it?
We do care what the law says. And, fine. The legal charge of child endangerment gets thrown out as a result.
However, at the same time, the standard of the best interest of the child is better served by the child welfare authorities in the jurisdiction in question. And that in turn becomes a separate issue, not covered by the laws you cite.
Oh, and by the way, if the child had died, would you still crusade so strongly to get the mom off?
No, we only have the word of the "evil officer" of her actions.
Bottom line is that she didn't care about anything but getting up the road as fast as possible. She didn't give two hoots about the law or anything else but shutting her kid up. She didn't care enough to pull over. She didn't think, period.
It's obvious that you don't care one way or the other either, thanks to the technicalities of the law. You'd make a great ACLU lawyer. Too bad.
Ah. So it comes out. Because my interpretation of protecting children doesn't fit with your playing with loopholes, I "love Big Brother" so much that I'll ignore the law.
Tell me. If that loophole you so happily flount weren't there, would you still be defending Mama Idiot so vociferously?
And, of course, you know this, right? Please. Spare me the lecture. It's not a matter of "lack of concern" as you charge me with, it's a matter of lack of credibility. It is obvious she doesn't care. But that's immaterial to you and yours.
Because I raise the issue, in your mind, I'm just "another evil conservative" who wants to take away your freedom.
No, I'm someone who wants to make sure that others don't endanger me. I've driven the Turnpike. I have loved ones who drive the Turnpike. I have no desire to see them plastered across the median because this woman made a poor decision to tend to her child to the detriment of her attention at the wheel.
He was far better than others she had encountered before. He simply refused to look at the law before he charged her, and in that he was derelict in his duty.
No, he interpreted the law differently than you did, thanks to his years of training. But that is not of concern to you. All you are concerned with is that she followed the law, so it's OK. It doesn't matter if she was distracted, because, in your mind, the portion of the law you cite regarding children and safety seats trumps the portion about the responsibility of the driver to remain attentive to the task at hand, i.e., driving the damn car!
Yup. Definitely sounds like that's the case.
Interesting.
She was in Ohio at the time.
I apologize if I have offended you.
Why should we go to the expense of fighting this in court in another state when all the trooper had to do was to look at the law.
The officer's job is to enforce the law. The loophole to which you refer is not a usual one that the officer comes across. It is not his place to interpret the limitations of the law, which it appears you have done. That responsibility belongs to the judicial branch. So, in that regard, the officer was correct. You would have to take that up in court.
More than that, he has a DUTY to know the law, and he was derelict in THAT duty.
He has a duty to know the law. Not a duty to know every interpretation of the law. In that light, he was correct in his actions.
So, why not just pay the fine and go on?
Because confessing to a falsity is contrary to the 8th Commandment.
I've got no problem with your adjudicating this in court. But at the same time, to coin a phrase, your rights end at my nose.
In other words, when your actions, lawful or not, endanger (or potentially endanger) me, your rights are superceded.
You want to skirt out on the fringes of the law, you have to be prepared to defend yourself. In court. No matter the cost.
You made the decision (a poor one, in my estimation) to step out there, and now, you will have to defend that decision, period.
Despite the fact that they won the Toledo War...
Ohio code section 4511.81, dealing with child car seats and quoted earlier in the thread, specifically allows to out-of-state travelers a defense that if the home state's law doesn't require a child seat, then they are not required to use one in Ohio.
Of course, you are correct in stating the Ohio trooper is not required nor expected to know Michigan's nursing exception to the car seat requirement. That defense is for the prosecutor and judge to hear. At the side of the road, the officer IS the law.
No, Ohio's Code says that if a person from out-of-state is stopped for not having a child in a car seat, then that is not a crime if that person's home state law doesn't require them to have a car seat.
That is a much narrower thing than "the laws of Michigan apply to her."
Michigan's Code allows you to breastfeed your baby in the car while it is moving.
No, it doesn't. Michigan's law states that the driver us not required to have a child passenger in a car seat if it is nursing. Subtle difference. Actually nursing the child and controlling the car simultaneously is, arguably, prohibited by Michigan CLs 257.677(1) and 257.626c, and Ohio Code section 4511.202.
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